I Approve My Tax Dollars to do That: Impose Tougher Regulation on the Prescription of Narcotics

From a very young age, we’re taught that doctors are “good guys.” Alongside police officers and firemen, doctors help us and are people we can trust. Whatever they prescribe us or inject us with is supposedly safe.

If that is the case, then why have prescription overdoses claimed more lives than heroin or cocaine?

In recent years, attention about misuse of prescription drugs has been directed toward situations in which they are attained illegally: the robbery of a pharmacy, a teenager swiping pills from a parent or sibling’s medicine cabinet, the raiding of a stash at a hospital. Much less focus has been placed on when a doctor has actually prescribed the drug. A Los Angeles Times report half of the patients who accidentally or intentionally overdosed in Southern California had a prescription for “at least one drug that attributed to their death” (http://www.latimes.com/news/science/prescription/la-me-prescription-deaths-20121111-html,0,2363903.htmlstory?main=true)

The majority of people who use pain relievers recreationally get them from friends or relatives but approximately one-fifth obtain them from their doctors. This graph excludes those who do take pain relievers for actual chronic pain.

Photo credit: http://discoveringalcoholic.com/category/prescription-drug-abuse

The Times uncovered some harrowing statics about some doctors having ten or more patients die from prescription drug overdose where the drug they prescribed was the primary agent in the patient’s death. Most never face criminal prosecutions and have spotless records with the California Medical Board. Recently the prescription of narcotic painkillers has shifted from exclusive use in cancer and other terminally used patients to becoming “among the most popular prescription drugs in the United States.” Nationally narcotic painkillers are responsible for approximately 15,500 deaths annually.

The number of drug-induced deaths has rapidly increased over the past decade. Now second only to motor vehicle fatalities, the number of drug-induced deaths has surpassed even gun shot deaths. What the chart fails to distinguish however is the number of suicides as a result of intentional drug overdose. I assume that such deaths would be categorized as suicides but they also pertain to the drug-induced category.

Photo credit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/prescription-drug-abuse

 How do we still maintain the accessibility of aggressive narcotic painkillers while reversing the escalating trend of overdose-related deaths? Patients who have tried exhausted alternative forms of pain therapy should be allowed access to stronger medication. At the same time, something that struck me about the Times article was how many of Dr. Vu’s patients to whom he prescribed narcotic painkillers were mentally unstable. That class of drugs requires that you be responsible, cognizant and mindful of their power. Thus I support the Times’ proposition to track the correlation between patient deaths and prescribing doctors. If he or she has had a certain percentage of his or her patients overdose and die, in Dr. Vu’s case there were 16 deaths as a result of the medications he prescribed, they should lose their license. Prescribers need to take the severity and strength of these drugs more seriously before automatically resorting to Hydrocodon or OxyContin. Someone needs to be held accountable for essentially putting a gun in these victims’ hands.

A table showing the drugs most commonly abused. Note that all categories are identified as "highly addictive." Two of the three also warn of death if used improperly. My doctor offered to prescribe me Hydrocodon when I was 16 for a back injury. Even as the daughter of two medical professionals, I didn't trust myself with such a powerful drug. I was shocked that she even suggested it. 

Photo credit: http://well.wvu.edu/articles/the_411_on_prescription_drug_abuse

I approve my tax dollars to do that: impose tougher regulation on the prescription of narcotics.